


The Great Pussy-Eating Contest of Toccoa

by theblossomknows



Series: The Fucking King of Easy Company [1]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Competition, F/M, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Reader-Insert, Slow Build, Slow Burn, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-11-24 10:41:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20906312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theblossomknows/pseuds/theblossomknows
Summary: It’s been weeks since anyone went on weekend pass, and it’s truly starting to show. In the heat of a Georgian night, a concept is born.





	1. Chapter 1

Between your heart and stomach ran a hot metal bolt of rage, piercing and burning. It cooked in between your lungs, and your hands grasped at the fabric of your trousers at your side. Worse than the anger, though, were the pangs of shame and embarrassment. Lieutenant Sobel had worked himself to the point of no return, and now just shouted for the sake of shouting. He’d chosen his victim while you all stood under the sweltering Georgia sun in full pack, and no one could do anything but stand straight as a rod while the spittle flew from his lips.

This time, it was Muck.

Sobel was so damn close to him, there was no way he could see Skip’s eyes, just his hairline. Worse than the heat, worse than your throat hurting from being sore and scratchy from thirst, worse than the black flies buzzing around all of you and the bites on your necks, was that nobody could shoulder their rifle and centre aim right on Sobel’s temple. Sure, chunks of gore would wind up all over Skip…

And sure, it was a technically awful thing to think, but there was no question in your mind that it was a thought shared by every single man standing in formation with you. Even Winters. When one man (or woman) got the VIP treatment from Sobel, everyone felt it.

He wasn’t even enunciating his words anymore. You doubted even Skip could understand any of it. The message wasn’t one of discipline, just anger, ego, and…sadism. Just cruelty for the sake of it, sheerly for having this power over other people. If you dropped dead of a heatstroke, Lieutenant Sobel would not feel a loss, or responsible. Doubtless, he’d start screaming at Luz and Penkala to carry off your carcass before it started to bloat.

When it ended, it didn’t really end. Sobel’s acrimony was either funnelled into one person or thrust upon all of you in even measure. It never went away.

It could transform, however, which you saw in his evil little camel eyes whenever he looked at you. _Just_ you.

That was enough of that skin-crawling thought.

Temporary respite from everything, the camp, shitty food, Sobel’s spine-crackling shrieks, sore feet, and aching backs were up for grabs in the form of weekend passes—should they not be revoked.

For three weeks, passes were terminated for the entire company, enlisted and officers. For three weeks, no one got laid. One week of no passes was an annoyance, but liveable. Often fellas would just play a few games of cards here and there to keep things jocular. No one was in the mood for card games on the second weekend stuck at camp. On the third weekend grounded, everybody _hated_ each other, and each and every one of you stayed in between the narrow lines of behavioural standard as squarely as possible. Nothing would please Sobel more than an excuse to deny the company liberty a fourth weekend in a row.

A few times, it seemed as if it may happen, and fights nearly broke out. The only kept one guy from holding the other back wasn’t that he wanted to defend the one about to get his lights knocked out, he just didn’t want the fight itself to be the thing that did everyone else in. Poor Smokey nearly got his jaw cracked two or three times, being one of Sobel’s favoured chew toys.

By Wednesday evening, no one knew whether to be relieved or more anxious than before. Half the week was gone without any mass revocations of privileges, but the other half was still rife with opportunity. It was the warmest night of the summer so far, 90 degrees, 90% humidity. The camp was full of sweat, sexual frustration, sass, and swearing.

“My fuckin’ nads feel like a bowling ball full of pudding,” Guarnere said, lying on his side on his cot. “And I’m sticky, but not in a good way.”

You groaned. He was getting even more foul. “There’s a good way, Gonorrhoea?”

“I would prefer being sticky the other way. What time is it? If you’re still fucking here after curfew, I swear to god…”

“Can you read your own damn watch?” you snapped, and it was clear you’d been spending rather too much time with Johnny, but now was not the time to address that matter. Now was the time to address the matter of Bill Guarnere’s beautiful, idiot face and the awful sounds that came out of it constantly. “It’s quarter til, and why don’t you go ahead and finish that sentence?”

Bill put his hand over his watch and wrinkled his nose. “Will you calm your ass down? I don’t care what time it is, if you’re not where you’re supposed to be, when you’re supposed to be there, you’re liable to get us all stuck here for another weekend.”

“Settle, settle.” Bull’s big hand patted your shoulder a few times. “You both’ll live, and you’ll probably live a little easier without bitching at each other.”

“See there, Y/N? Big guy’s spoken.” Guarnere got back onto his side again, his head resting against his arm. After a moment, though, his mouth opened again. “Why are you in a worse mood than me? You could fuck any man in this place. My opportunities are limited to the amount of available women who just happen to be wherever I wind up _when_ I’m on a pass who also want to sleep with me. You’re sitting around here with a smorgasbord of dicks, just pissed. Why? If I was a lady…well, there is the fact you _know_ everybody, so that, you know, I get it, lessens their would-be animal magnetism by…a lot. But still! Dicks abound! Why don’t you go hop on one?”

You spluttered and knocked your knee on one of the cots’ frames as you stood. “No, not dicks abound, I’ve never had sex, and when I do, I promise you whoever it is will never have been in the Army.”

“I’ll be damned! You’re going to fuck a paratrooper if you’re going to fuck anybody! This is a matter of honour, Y/N. They don’t _have_ to be from Easy. You’re a terrible, dirty traitor if they’re not, but they don’t gotta be.”

Toye leaned down from his bunk then and started smacking at Bill, causing the entire structure to sway worryingly. “Hey, don’t call her a traitor! Come here, get over here, I’m gonna—”

“Well, shit, Joe, she’s gotta come sometime,” Bill said, struggling to get away.

“You’re going to fall,” you said, attempting to support Toye at the waist.

“Y/N, you really mean you ain’t ever done _nothing_?” Bill asked. He was promptly clocked in his stupid, pretty jaw.

You blushed at once. Bull was still right behind you, Joe was also there, other Joe was watching it all from his bunk like he was watching a movie, sometime in the last thirty seconds Johnny paused angrily nearby, arms crossed. “I didn’t say that.”

“Ever had your pussy eaten?” Johnny asked from his spot. It almost took your breath away just to hear him say those words, and with all their eyes on you, too, along with many more whose ears had naturally perked at the word pussy. A warm spot grew in between your thighs, and you saw the tug of a smirk pull at the corner of Johnny’s lips. He nodded. “Do we know the guy?”

Instantly, you looked at your watch. “This has been great, and you’re all horrible bastards, and fuck you very much. I’ll see you in the morning, gentlemen, for I have got to run before I get caught and we get revoked. Nighty night!”

“You volunteering to make Y/N a happy woman, Martin?” Bill asked with a cigarette bobbing between his lips. A match hissed to life and died in half a second’s time. “Or maybe somebody else better volunteer…”

Johnny bristled at him, expression souring once more. “You think you could do it better?”

“Yeah.” Guarnere shoved Toye so that he could sit up and looked at you. “Y/N, who do you think could make you come so hard you can taste sounds?”

“Who said it’s just between you?” Liebgott interjected.

“Hey, hey,” Talbert stepped up then, holding up both his hands and making a ’T’ gesture. “Time the fuck out.”

You touched your neck, your very pink neck. “Thank you, Floyd.”

Tab held his jaw between his thumb and fingers and gazed over the men present. “You’ve all lost your damn minds if you think there’s a snowball’s chance in Georgia you’d be able to beat me.”

“Well, how would we even know?” George asked. He looked at you, then at the rest. “There’s not anybody to actually vouch for any of us.”

“She’s the judge, you fool!” Skip cried. “If we want to know who’s best and all want Y/N to stop being—if we want to know who’s best and get her super high on orgasms, who else? An independent consultant? _Fool_.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Toye said seriously, his eyes holding yours. “Stop listening to these idiots. Yeah, you’re all rude morons. This is our _friend_. Act like you’ve got some dignity, treat her with fucking respect.”

“Oh, so you wouldn’t? You’re somehow better than every man here, and wouldn’t give your eyeteeth just to tear her panties off with your teeth?” Don asked, and quickly looked at you. “Not that I ever thought about it before now.”

You just pointed at the door, wishing like hell you’d left before your argument with Bill had even begun. “I’m going to go now. Please pray for brains tonight.”

Just then, Lipton came running through that very same door. His cheeks were flushed, and his breathing laboured. He reached for your arm. “If you all were talking about what I think you were talking about, tomorrow’s going to be a bad day. Come on, Y/N, I’m walking you back.”

It was a sort walk to where the ladies at camp bedded down every night. The air was somehow still just as suffocating outside the mens’ barracks as in. Your leather boots trampled down over crispy blades of glass, just as Lipton’s did, and you cold just feel waves of embarrassment and regret radiating from the man. With one glance it was apparent that he was more deeply affected than you—it didn’t really bother _you_…

“Hey, Lip.” You smiled at him and put your arm around his shoulder. Well, you _tried_ to put your arm around his shoulder. When he looked at you, you gave him a light, one-armed hug. “I’m telling you now, I’m fine. I’m unperturbed.”

He tried to smile back, looked away. “They’re organising some kind of…”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, they apparently are.”

“And you…”

“I don’t know, maybe.” Damn, were those truly words from your own lips?

“Well, I-I guess, if it’s what _you_ want to do…” Lipton furrowed his brow and chewed his lip as you walked on. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you getting eaten out by ten or a hundred men, if it’s what you _want_ to do, and not just some sort of…some sort of…”

“Well, actually, you would make just nine.”

Carwood stumbled on a rock, or maybe on his own sheepishness. You caught his arm to keep him from taking a tumble, and he maybe held himself a little closer to you than would ordinarily be kosher. “I, uh, well, if that’s what you _wanted_ to do…”

“Clear something up for me,” came another smooth voice through the humid dusk. How it was Lewis Nixon managed to be everywhere at once, to know all things at all times…it really was getting to be a gigantic inconvenience and colossal pain in the ass. Lewis exhaled a plume of smoke through pursed lips, but his dark eyes were grinning. “We’re talking about myself, Sergeant Lipton, and a motley crew of would-be paratroopers participating in some sort of oral sex tournament, yourself as the judge?”

You and Lipton both stammered, and did so long enough for Lewis to give a little laugh and reach for his hidden flask.

“Well then,” he said, taking a sip. “Let the great pussy-eating contest of Toccoa begin.”


	2. Chapter 2

Thursday morning you prepared to rejoin the world of the enlisted men reluctantly. The procedure of dressing for a day of classroom lecture (and it was for real this time, apparently Sink was beginning to notice how frequently it was forgone for the sake of general torture) was stiff and slow, each movement begrudging, anxious. Trust your mates though you might, the fear that by now the entirety of Toccoa had heard that you all but agreed to judge an ‘oral sex tournament’ had sunk its teeth into your bones.

Perhaps it was really the fear that the idea excited you, but that was just another unwelcome thought. Ignoring how you felt about things you couldn’t change had become old hat since coming to this accursed patch of land, so you did. You ignored how it felt to imagine yourself in a dark room with Liebgott kissing you, squeezing your thighs with both hands, your skin growing warmer and warmer…

Well, that certainly didn’t fucking help anything.

It took a full five seconds to realise that Bill Guarnere was talking to you. It sounded at first like the regular chatter of troops moving all around you as you walked to the mess facility but there really was no mistaking that voice, that accent. Whatever it was at first, you didn’t catch it, and now he was just waiting for you to speak.

“You’re that pissed at me, huh?” Bill kicked lightly at the grass, head down. “Ah, I deserve it.”

“Pissed at what? You talking about your pudding balls?”

“No, I’m funny.” He shook his head, that belief rooted into his shoulders, the fool. “For talking about you and your, er…”

“Talked about me getting laid? Or, rather, me not getting laid, as it were?” When he paled, you laughed. “Everybody’s on edge, Guarno, more or less for the same reasons. It’s all right.”

“Okay…” He seemed to roll that thought around his head, then the set of his jaw changed. “All right, then. In this essay, I will convince you that I am the best possible choice as a competitor for the Great—”

Your hand clamped over his mouth and you had to look around to make sure that your sudden movements nor his words had attracted any unwanted attention.

“You said you weren’t mad at me!” he cried, muffled through your hand.

“Did not.” You shook your head. “I forgave you, I didn’t say I wasn’t mad—not that I _am_, you’re just always wrong. Did you actually write an essay?”

Bill shook his head and waited to be released. “No, like I said, I’m funny.”

“Guarnere—”

“Just listen one second. Just listen.” He must’ve been able to sense the way the apprehension had flooded your nerves yet again. His voice was quiet and even, and he patted his chest with his flat palm. “I’m an asshole. Born and raised into it. Where I’m from, it’s sort of how you do, but, you know, wherever you’re from, heh, you’re just from better stuff, so I know I’m too much and I’m crass and it don’t exactly go over very well or come across so good. I’m sorry. Toye’s never been right in his life before he told us to have some dignity and respect for you. He thinks real high of you. Well, everybody does, but you could get that kid to jump through a flaming hoop, I’m telling ya.”

There was a sense of firmness to his voice that lent a sense of sincerity to his words. It replaced that sort of cocksure swell that normally puffed up the edges of his words. There was the round, lilting rhythm of his accent, but then there was something else. In place of it was a distinct impression of the _real_ Bill Guarnere, rather than everybody’s Will Bill. Lightened by that, some of your worries assuaged, you cracked a smile at him sideways and shook your head.

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking _kidding_ me.”

There was Joe Toye and his Most Displeased Eyebrows, coming up fast. Before his palms connected with Bill’s back to shove him, you gently (well, sort of) pulled him away.

“Gonorrhea was just apologising for running his mouth last night,” you said, and really, all of these guys were morons that never seemed to connect with the fact that there were hundreds more people at Toccoa than themselves.

“You’re fucking right you are,” Joe grumbled to Guarnere.

Bill looked to you, fully back to himself now. With a crass chuckle, he jerked his thumb in Toye’s direction. “Now we know who _really_ needs to get some.”

“It’s a joke, Joe.” You hadn’t needed to look to know that Toye’s eyebrows had almost converged into a single, thick line of rage, but you did anyway. “It’s a super shitty, typical Gonorrhea joke. Not worth losing it over.”

The venomous caterpillar on Joe’s forehead rose. “Hear that? You ain’t worth it.”

Bill chuckled again, delighted to be given exactly what he wanted: the ability to agitate someone relatively harmlessly. “Just wait 'til I write my essay about why I’d be better at eating her out than you.”

Rather than lunge at him, as you expected with a great leap of fear in your belly, Joe just scoffed. “Like you know how to write.”

You rolled your eyes so hard it gave you a painful twinge, then sighed. At least you’d made it to the mess hall.

“Hey, I’ve written more words than you’ve ever even read,” Bill snapped, but the sallow, straight-backed figure marching among the trestle tables was enough to quiet them both. Sobel leaned over the backs of Roe and Talbert in an apparent inspection of the way the men ate.

You swallowed, and most of your appetite for the underwhelming breakfast that lay ahead was quelled. Something about Sobel twisted around your stomach whenever you saw him doing what he enjoyed, and you were not naive enough to believe that the men felt this, too.

“Yoink.” You felt a hand on your arm, and there beside you was (yet again from seemingly nowhere) Lewis Nixon. He was smiling in the sort of way a man smiles when he’s already won. “Private Y/N will be breaking her fast with myself and Lieutenant Winters. Thanks for bringing her my way.”

Oh, God.

To be totally fair, it was not entirely out of place for Lewis to reel you in like a fish on a line, sit you up beside Winters, and say things that horrified you for the ten or twenty minutes you had to eat. Well, out of place, but not out of the ordinary, nothing that would cause Sobel more than a roll of his eyes and perhaps a skulk in your general direction. In this situation, the element of danger wasn’t your commanding officer, but a man whose actual function within the Army itself had not yet become entirely apparent.

Lieutenant Winters, for his part, simply made room for you. “Good morning. Remember, don't—”

“Give me an audience, yeah, she knows.” Lewis tugged a flask down his sleeve just enough to splash some of its contents into his coffee, and you were momentarily floored by that bit of ingenuity and brilliance. If he could apply that towards absolutely anything else, Lewis Nixon could take over the world, but that was a terrifying thought, so you said nothing of it and thanked god the man was satisfied with just whiskey. “She’s not my audience today, though.”

Winters slowed down for the barest of moments. “Am I not always your captive audience, Nix?”

A little smirk on his lips, a dark sparkle in his eyes. Nixon’s posture straightened with enthusiasm.

Oh, _God_.

“I’m glad you asked, Dick.”

“Don’t make Y/N uncomfortable, Lew. Torturing young women shouldn’t be a sport.”

“I have never played a sport in my life and you know that,” Nixon said with false indignation. The fucker had a grin stretched across his entire face now. “Actually, Y/N, I don’t know, would you call it a sport?”

You nearly knocked over your water, but Winters casually corrected its course before it could happen.

“Lewis.”

“It’s a real question,” Nixon said, growing even more pleased with himself now that he’d made the both of you so achingly tense.

Winters took a sip of coffee and wiped his mouth. “Okay, then.”

Lewis looked again to you. “Would you call it a sport, Y/N?”

“This awful little game?”

He shook his head, another boyish, 'aw shucks’ smile. “Nah, this is definitely a sport. I’m talking about The Great—”

“Pyramid of Giza.” It was the only thing you could think of. “That is a monument, Lieutenant Nixon, not a sport.”

Now Winters sighed. “I would really prefer not to be brought into whatever it is the two of you are doing, and she clearly adheres to the same preferences, Lewis.”

“Well, see, Dick, this time it actually is important you know what’s happening so you don’t try and stop it.”

“The more you talk, the worse this sounds.”

Nixon looked over at you and smiled, then back in Winters’ direction. “Also, I wanted to see if you were interested in participating. If Y/N agrees to it, of course.”

“Lieutenant Nixon, please,” you said, hands balled up in your lap.

“He _does_ have to hear about it ahead of time,” Nixon said, although his eyes weren’t so sparkly as before. “Imagine he finds out about it on his own. Do you know how many colours of the rainbow this man can turn? Now, I’ve seen some of them, but I really think he could go full spectrum.”

“Okay Lew, you have my attention.” Winters was holding up a hand. “Say whatever it is I need to know ahead of time, but afterward you’re going to let this drop so that she can eat and get to the classroom.”

“Attention is the only sustenance I need and you know it, so thanks for finally giving it to me,” Nixon said. Then, without missing a single beat, he went straight into it. “Me and some of the enlisted men are going to eat Y/N’s pussy to see who’s best at it.”

Winters stopped everything, stopped eating, stopped moving, stopped breathing. He just stared at Nixon, who only grew visibly more joyful and excited with every excruciating second that passed.

Truly, the actual motive Nixon had for all of this was yet unknown to you. The best guess at your disposal was the sheer amusement of it all for a very bored man.

Winters left abruptly, taking his things away with him, but Nixon stopped you before you could move.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, holding onto your wrist. “He just needed to know. I know how to talk to Dick.”

“He’s my platoon leader,” you said incredulously.

“Uh, yeah, but who of us do you think would be more devastated on a personal level if he got upset?”

“_That_ wasn’t upset?” Damn, your voice had risen a bit too much, especially to be speaking to an officer, but a quick glance around told you that the surrounding conversations were too loud for you to be noticed over the drone of voices and chatter.

Nixon rolled his eyes jovially and drank again of his spiked coffee. “Nah! That was…miffed. I can deal with him being miffed.”

For a second, all you could do was blink. “Miffed? You just told my superior officer about an obscene, sexual conspiracy taking place between members of his platoon and, for some reason, his best friend.”

“Why not me?”

“No, I mean I don’t understand how you and Lieutenant Winters could be such close friends.”

Nixon kept on getting his kicks out of you. “Because I’m so stinkin’ cute. Now, about this contest.”

“Did you do all that just to make sure that it was going to happen?” you asked, and the thought made your belly cold.

“Of course not. I never would have said anything at all, to him or to you, if I didn’t know for a _fact_ that it was going to happen. You’re too curious, Y/N. You _like it_ too much.” Nixon winked at you, rubbed the inside of your wrist with his thumb.

“You’re a bigger asshole than Bill Guarnere could ever aspire to be, you know that?” For the moment, his rank didn’t matter to you so much as the embarrassment.

“Oh, phooey and pshaw! Bill Guarnere is just a different _kind_ of asshole than me. You really need to read more books on the different species of asshole that can be found in this world, Y/N.”

You took a deep breath and started to eat quickly. Even if all you had ahead of you was sitting in a crowded room, elbow to elbow with sweet Shifty and darling, unassuming Chuck, you would be hungry before too long. When you didn’t speak, Nixon sighed.

“I have all of this covered,” he said. “All of it. I spoke to every man that was there last night. It scared the shit out of them. For some reason, they thought you’d come to me, of all fucking people, to bring the hammer of god down on them, and if that’s what you want, I will. I’ll do anything you want me to do, but I think you want this, and it works out for everybody. One way or another, ten men are going to make sure there’s no company-wide revocation of liberty passes until this is over with. Everyone has to pay up so you stay someplace nice. Two fellas a pass, nobody says a word because now they’re all deeply invested in it happening and equally nervous that what they’ve _already_ done is going to get them all misery-fucked up and down Currahee. If you don’t want to, nothing will happen. If you do, I still think you should leave the details up to me. Passes every weekend, treated like a goddamn queen, nobody says a word about it, and I mean nobody. I got it in writing.”

“You got…”

Before you could finish, he passed you a folded piece of paper, which you promptly put into your pocket. Like hell you’d risk opening it now.

“If it’s what you want, let me know by sundown,” Nixon said, and he finished the last of his coffee and took his leave.

Of course you wanted it. There had just been nothing for you to _say_, nothing to mutter against the tide of certainty and confidence, the _preparedness_.

He’d gotten it in _writing_?

That curiosity was just too much to let it drag on for a second longer than necessary. You ate as quickly as you could stomach the questionable mass of 'food’ in front of you with that note burning a hole in your pocket. It wasn’t lost on you that nine heads turned and followed your every move when you went to bus the tray and left the mess.

While you imagined a contract, what you saw when you got a half-second alone, dodged inside a supply tent, actually made you laugh. Lewis was smart enough not to put the gritty details on a sheet of paper, and wise enough to take down what he said he had, and the only part that truly counted.

'I solemnly swear to do what I agreed and shut the fuck up about it.

George Luz

Bill Guarnere

Floyd Talbert

Warren Muck

Donald G. Malarkey

Joe Lieb(scrawl)

Joseph Toye

John Martin

C. Carwood Lipton

Lewis Nixon’

Stuffing the contract back into your pocket, you smiled. With a sense of peace and joyful anticipation, you walked to the classroom with a spring in your step.


	3. Chapter 3: Joe Toye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Round One

You watched the patterned blue and white teacup as it lifted to Lewis Nixon’s lips. He took a sip, and he was watching you right back. For the first time in a while, your hair was not fitting regulations. For the first time in a while, you were wearing a dress, something you had never in your wildest dreams thought that you would miss. He kept pushing your cup and saucer closer to you, all wide-eyed, bit by bit. Finally, you picked it up to take a sip and play whatever little game so he would eventually leave.

You nearly spat it out. “What the fuck is this? Acetone and turpentine?”

Nixon snickered and shifted his shoulders back and forth. “Some of the finest whiskey you’ll ever taste in your life.”

“That’s what you’ve been drinking all this time? God, you must have burned your tastebuds off with it.” Rising from the table quickly, you went to the bathroom sink to rinse your mouth.

“Wine is for pussies,” he called after you. “And speaking of…like the room?”

“Oh, hell yes,” you said as you sat back down. You pushed your teacup towards him, the gross bastard. “I almost cried or came when I crashed onto the bed after checking in earlier, don’t know which.”

“You’ll come a lot in this room,” Nixon said fondly.

You lit a cigarette, watching him more closely now. “So, you’re ready? You put yourself at the top of the little roster that you made?”

“No, I’ve made more creative and interesting choices than that.” One of his thick eyebrows rose and he shook his head. “So little you know me, woman.”

You tsked and nodded. “Yes, you’re right.”

“I’m not going to tell you who’ll be participating in this oral sex tournament—lickathlon, if you will—you’ll see him soon enough. As the ambassador of your pussy—”

“You can’t call yourself that. You cannot call yourself _that_ and still compete.”

“As the ambassador of your pussy,” he said, louder now, “I would like to establish the tradition of the pre-pussy eating tea, or Slurppin’ Time, if you will—”

“I will not!” It was impossible not to laugh, though. “I will not, not to either of those things!”

Nixon waved a hand. “Ssh, ssh, traditions are important and have a valued place within culture. Ssh, it’s okay, I went to Yale.”

You leaned against the table and groaned. “You’ve poisoned me and annoyed me, what more do you want?”

He groaned too, a loud, exaggerated version of your own, and downed the whiskey in your teacup. “_Fine_, the Ambassador from the United States knows when he isn’t wanted.”

“I don’t think that you _do_ know that, though.”

“Don’t sass me,” he said. “_I_ do the sassing, and that’s that.”

You closed your eyes and trained your expression. You had learned how to do it with Sobel screaming in your face, after all, and you didn’t need Lewis Nixon to go around thinking you thought he was funny. Then it would truly _never end_. “Yes, Lieutenant Sass.”

With a whistled tune and flask in his hand, he went over to the writing desk and made some sort of scribbles that turned out to be a phone number. “Call me if you need me. Or, you know. If you get bored.”

“Why would I—”

"Because you’d be bored.” With a wink, he let himself out of the room that had been collectively paid for by a bunch of idiots you were actually going to let go down on you.

One of those idiots, by some silly miracle of happenstance, knocked on the door not thirty seconds after you heard Nixon’s boots clunking down the hallway. You were still at the table wondering who it was, having transformed into an idiot yourself, apparently, when they knocked again.

“Coming!”

In true idiot fashion, you very nearly tripped on the rug.

Your heartbeat quickened ever-so-slightly when you put your hand on the doorknob and twisted, but the friendliest pair of dark eyes you had ever seen in your life greeted you cheerfully.

“Look at you!” Toye said, clapping you on the shoulder. “Sorry I didn’t put on any civvies, I didn’t know we were dressing to impress.”

With a soft scoff and roll of your eyes, you nudged his arm with your shoulder. “Then it doesn’t take very much to impress you, now does it?”

“Hey, maybe not, after having to look at a whole company of ugly bastards for weeks on end, present company excluded, but fuck you, you know you look pretty. Come here, huh?” Joe pulled you into a tight, warm hug, the kind where you couldn’t help but smile against his scratchy shirt. Joe rubbed the back of your neck gently a few times. “Let’s go get a drink. I want everyone in this town to think a guy like me could land a girl like you. _Lady_. I meant lady.”

“Remember that time Luz gave me ten dollars to pretend to be his date to make that one woman jealous and it backfired horribly?” You locked the door of your room and dropped the key inside one of his open pockets.

“I sure do,” Joe said. “Bill still won’t touch a bottle of gin, either.”

This was the comfortable space you normally communicated in, through the medium of shit talk and reminiscing as though a truly significant amount of time had somehow slipped through your collective fingers. The clean, comfortable hotel was a considerable distance from the usual stomping grounds of Easy company, but the company enjoyable, the conversation lively. Joe Toye was the sort of guy that broke into song and laughed easily with anybody that he felt comfortable with. Being part of that exclusive club, realising that fact sometimes, always brought a fresh smile to your face.

Although you’d heard him tell the story about the rat that Webster found in his footlocker half a hundred times, he had a talent for keeping it funny.

###

It took a few tries to get to a bar Toye was satisfied with. A good ratio of locals to soldiers to empty seats was key, he said, and finally you settled on one with faded letters on its sign and a wooden hog’s head over the door.

“That’s how you know it has a lot of character,” Joe said, letting you in ahead of him. “See, this is how I know I got a lot I need to teach you.”

“Teach me?” Wrinkling your nose, you stole the cigarette he had lit for himself and inhaled deeply, thoughtfully. “You’re not in Pennsylvania anymore, Dorothy. Georgia is foreign territory to you, too. And besides, I think you made that up to get me to agree to come in here—wait, is that John and Bull?”

Joe tsked and waved his hand, pushing the words away. “Nah, don’t worry about them. They got some sort of darts score to settle that’s had to go unresolved for weeks, and when it’s dark out they’ll both be out chasing skirts. We got an honour system, don’t worry about it.”

Your eyes could have bugged out of your skull. There were so many new concepts to absorb since just a few nights ago, each one more devastatingly peculiar than the last. “A pussy-eating honour system? I…can’t begin to imagine what that could include!”

“I _do_ got a lot to teach you, and you should be more receptive to learning, wise ass.” Joe got that little smirk at the corner of his lips, and you crossed your legs under the table. “Any man trying to interfere just opens himself up to being fucked with, himself. And besides, there’s the whole _honour_ part. But forget all that for now, huh? Come on, you’re supposed to be having drinks with me!”

It was an hour or more later that you realised how hard Joe was trying to steer you away from any thoughts of the contest. You had to wonder, if silently, whether that meant he was feeling regretful about involving himself as a participant, and that nagging little thought soured your belly and pulsated as a pit of anxiety.

A song began to play as more people came into the bar and nighttime began to settle over the crowded little town. Joe’s huge hands slapped together and he stood so quickly that his chair squeaked backward.

“I fucking love this!” he declared, and circled around the table to collect you. “Come on, a woman like you should never be sitting down when she could be dancing.”

Those words alone softened the hard edges that squeezed around your stomach. Joe took you by the hand and you followed him. Although no one else was dancing and no one else joined in, he sang and danced with you in his arms until you were smiling again, laughing again. There was spinning, twirling, dips at the waist, some complicated footwork, everything. It didn’t matter that you were the only fools dancing between the tables and the bar, or that there was no actual proper, designated area to dance in. It didn’t matter if you got funny looks, it didn’t even matter to you at this point if the owner of the establishment came and told you both to get the hell out.

“Hey, I wanna cut in.”

Ugh, that voice was extremely recognisable and extremely unwanted. Roy Cobb looked no more dapper or pleasant than he ordinarily did, and although you could admire the man’s previous service and perseverance under the reign of that goddamn Sobel, that gourd-shaped face of his was never one you wanted to see.

“Lady’s busy,” Joe said, never missing a step. He twirled you around again, and before Cobb could complain, Johnny and Bull were pulling him away.

“Not today, Cobb,” Bull said, and patted the shorter man on the shoulder. Really, it was more of a light-handed shove…

Johnny scoffed. “Yeah, right. Not ever, Cobb.”

“Can you believe it?” Joe asked, pulling you in when the music hit a flourish. “Like you’re ready to get rid of Joe Toye just yet. Unbelievable! I still got some time left until you’re sick of me.”

“That was fucking weird,” you said with a laugh. “He never really talks to me.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a slight possibility he’s thick-headed enough not to have realised who you were at first. No one’s fooling with you about looking damn good in that dress and a pair of red heels.” He smiled at you and held you both still when the song ended.

Your cheeks felt warmer, and your attempt at distracting from that was a loud scoff and insistence that it was time for another beer, another cigarette. A glance at his watch told you just how much time had passed since you left your hotel. When you settled back into your seat, Toye’s eyes flicked towards the door as it opened because he was observant that way (numerous rumours existed as to the origins of this hyper-vigilance), but this time he narrowed his eyes, gave a derisive little chuff of a laugh.

“Son of a bitch couldn’t help himself. Hey, come on, let’s get out of here, yeah?” He stood, reached for your hand.

Wholeheartedly, you expected to see Bill Guarnere when you walked past the bar, but you could see hide nor hair nor incredibly sharp jawline. You DID see Bull elbow Johnny and the little raise of eyebrows and disapproving look, but when you followed Johnny’s line of sight, there was still no Guarnere to be seen. You would have heard him by now, too, you realised. He wouldn’t have been able to resist making a smart remark after riling Toye up.

When you passed along the bar, the person that finally stood out for you was not a Wild William Guarnere, but a Liebgott, Joseph D. You couldn’t know for sure, but Toye’s words and Liebgott’s cool smirk hinted at what came next on Nixon’s Disgusting Roster of True Malfeasance (his words, not your own).

Toye cleared his throat when the fresh air hit your faces. “Sorry about that, I hope I didn’t throw you off.”

“Oh, no, no, you didn’t. We’d been sitting in there for three hours, anyway.” So far as you knew, he hadn’t realised you’d noticed Liebgott, and there wasn’t any need for him to, either. As earlier, you nudged his arm with your shoulder. “So, I usually look bad enough that Cobb couldn’t recognise me, huh?”

“Pfft. Cobb’s usually got his head shoved ever-so-firmly up his own ass he can’t notice anything except something to bitch about. Don’t act like you didn’t know what I meant, you twisted little soul.”

“Oh, so we’re on the subject of souls now, I see!”

Joe looked down at you cockeyed and put his arm around your shoulder. “Oh, I can tell you got a lot to say about the state of mine, then.”

You winked. “I might.”

You absolutely did not. At an alarming rate, you were running out of bullshit to spew, and nervous he was going to figure that out. The back and forth kept going for a little while, some gentle prods and casual insults spoken with an affectionate sort of irreverence perhaps unique to the conversations you had with Joe Toye. He was a good soldier, a good friend, and a good man, and that soul of his was golden, so far as you were concerned.

Would any of the others do anywhere near as much to show you just how normal things actually were, or could be?

When you stepped off the main road, Joe’s arm moved smoothly down from your shoulders to your waist, and he held you slightly closer than before. For a few moments, neither of you said anything, and there was only the sound of your heels and his boots, the rolling hiss of cicadas calling out to one another in the humid dark.

Then you felt his hand warmly, firmly squeezing your hip, and your thighs suddenly warmed.

“You know you don’t have to do this,” he said, voice thicker, huskier than it had been all evening. Immediately, that warmth between your thighs travelled upward. He squeezed again, pulled you closer yet. “I’d be a fucking liar if I said I hadn’t been thinking about it for days, though. And fuck, when you opened the door in that little dress of yours…”

It couldn’t be said for sure if Joe Toye was trying to get you dripping wet before you even set foot on the grounds of your hotel, but the slick son of a bitch was beginning to, intentionally or not. When you _did_ step onto the little cobbled walkway leading up to the building, he leaned down and brushed his lips against the tip of your ear.

“I want you to know I’m gonna take good care of you,” he whispered. “You know I’m gonna take care of you, don’t you?”

“Fuck!” you cried sharply, not considering the fact that the word was not normally uttered in what would consider ‘the real world’. A little old couple were just getting into their car, the husband loading a suitcase into the backseat, and the wife was practically clutching her pearls.

Well, in this case, a rosary. Either way, they definitely now had the impression that they had stayed at an establishment of ill-repute where would-be classy prostitutes 'entertained’ some of the uniformed gents coming out from Toccoa.

Cursing _under_ your breath this time, you started walking faster. Beside you, Joe sped up as well, a rumbly little chuckle escaping him. Your hand shook with excitement, anticipation when you took the key to your room from his pocket. When you were inside, finally, everything went quiet.

Joe’s body travelled deftly around your own until he was right in front of you, arm still around your waist. He bit his lips while looking at yours. “You can still back out, you know. Push me away, tell me no. I’ll leave and never say a word about it. I’d never let _any_ of them say a word about it. I’ll take care of you one way or the other, any way you need me to.”

“Joe,” you said, bracing your hands on his broad shoulders a bit brusquely. “You talk too goddamn much.”

He kissed you then, for the first time, not suddenly, but smoothly, with the same sort of warmth that came with all his other touches. “I can promise you one fucking thing: I know what you need to hear better than you do, now get on the goddamn bed before I have to put you there myself.”

You only JUST managed to keep yourself from giggling with excitement and skipping over to the bed. That would have been bad, but what you somehow managed to pull off was a little saunter. You stepped out of your heels first without breaking eye contact with Joe and actually saw him swallow, saw his throat bob. Your stockings were smooth against the hardwood floor, stepping lightly over it, over the rug, until finally you sat at the end of the bed. Crossing your legs, you even got to look a little bored, a little expectant.

“Oh, you’re in trouble now.” Joe had his hands on top of your thighs faster than you could even process and held them in his firm grip. When your head began to swim, he kissed you until nearly everything but physical sensation danced its way out the door.

Joe pushed down on top of you, now with his hands in your hair. Your back arched just so that you could feel your chest press against his, how your nipples hardened from the stimulation of indirect contact. With passion came frenzy, and with it came a delicious sort of recklessness. Right when you ran out of breath, Toye sat up, his chest rising and falling harshly.

His hand swept against his hair. “You gotta tell me if I get to be too much for you, or if you want me to stop.”

You reached for his collar. “Joe, goddamn it, I want to do this and I don’t know how to make that any clearer. If I think of a way, I’ll let you know.”

He smirked again, even as relief hinted itself in his eyes. “Ah, gotcha. Well, get up by the pillows and relax, sweetheart. I told you I’d take care of you any way you wanted me to.”

You were already fighting your way up to the head of the bed before he even finished speaking.

Joe bit his lip, looking down at you like a delicious snack. “Want me under the covers?”

For the life of you, and perhaps because there was no blood flowing to your brain anymore, you could _not_ extrapolate any meaning from that question at all. “Under the…?”

With a jerk of his chin, he nodded at the quilted blanket.

“Why the hell—Joe!”

“All right, all right!” He chuckled again and got down on his belly. “_Impatient_.”

“You’re fucking right I’m impatient!” you cried. “You’re doing it on purpose!”

Joe winked, hands on your knees. “Maybe I am. Can I?”

God, his voice alone was making your pussy thump. Breathless still, you nodded, and felt Joe Toye’s hands slide underneath the skirt of your dress, dragging your panties down your thighs.

“Oh, my god,” he whispered, chest heaving again. Once he had them off, he tossed them. He nuzzled the inside of your thigh, halfway from your knee, and carefully pushed the skirt up, exposing you.

At the moment, any sort of embarrassment at all, you just could not fucking care about. His reactions to your body, to your arousal, were an intoxicant unknown to you before. He continued to kiss and nuzzle your thighs, but placed a hand on top of your pubic bone and rubbed your clit slowly with his thumb. When your body jerked, you could feel the breath of a laugh against your skin, hot and velvety.

“I’ve never seen a prettier pussy in my entire life,” he whispered, moving to your other thigh, still with his thumb working a slow and subtly torturous circle against your clit. You could feel the slightest hint of stubble dragging along with his lips, and every now and then a playful nip with his teeth. “You smell so fucking _good_…”

Your muscles contracted involuntarily; you’d never before considered how splendid it could feel to be bitten on your inner thigh. It wasn’t hard, nor was it sharp, just a teasing pressure followed with just the barest hint of his tongue flicking against your skin.

His mouth was barely even near your pussy and already you were bending your knees and fighting the urge to beg for it. You would have if the waiting, the teasing, the anticipation weren’t all so fucking magnificent. He was getting closer, moaning softly as he travelled.

Joe’s hands pushed down on your hips just before he kissed your clit so that he could keep them from bucking against him. Again you could feel the ghost of a laugh, but a thousand times better than it had felt against your leg. One touch of his tongue and it felt like it was going to be over; you reached for his head just to have his hair between your fingers.

Damn if he didn’t know, though, exactly what he was doing. He knew the secrets of your body as if this were something he had done with you a hundred times, in the past. One hand carefully held you open for him. The other groped and squeezed at your waist, hips, thighs, ass, never settling long enough, making you squirm from that touch alone…

His lips closed around your clit and he sucked gently, just for a few seconds. “Hey, sweetheart?”

Your voice shook. “Yeah, Joe?”

His fingers played around your entrance. “Mind if I…”

Too quickly you agreed, too eagerly, but you were even further from caring about the way that you sounded or how desperate you seemed—in this moment, thanks to the fabulous skilled of his apparent world-champion of pussy eating, you _were_ desperate, utterly and completely so.

Your walls instantly squeezed around the two digits he slid inside your body. The headboard was solid, no railing, so your hands had to find purchase balled up in the pillows and sheets. You could hear him begin to whisper now and then, but couldn’t hear what he was saying over your own cursing and moaning. The cool air he blew over your heated, over-sensitised skin was making your thighs tremble.

The warm, tense fire Joe had been stoking in between your legs was quickly building past the point his edging could contain. You could hear your own voice softly babbling, practically sobbing.

Mercifully, Joe started to suck gently on your clit again, but this time he continued even when you shook all over, even when you pulled his hair and cried out so loudly you were partly nervous about being summarily thrown out of the building. He kept pumping his fingers in and out, curling them upward against your g-spot all the while, going on and on until you felt it hit you all over again.

This time, it threatened to pull you apart entirely.

A few more small, teasing rolls of his tongue and Joe gently pulled your hand away from his hair and laid on the bed next to you. He was with you for a while, chin still wet, then brought your knuckles to his lips to kiss them.

“Goddamn,” he whispered. “If I were a lesser man, I’d be begging you to fuck me right now.”

It elicited a sudden laugh, and you were finally able to come _down_ from it all. You smacked his chest playfully, but weakly. “You just want me to think that you’re not.”

Now he laughed, too. “You may be right, but I’m not gonna say. Listen, everything’s okay, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you affirmed softly. “Seriously, I have _no_ complaints. Excellent, outstanding, good job.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Joe chuckled against the crook of your shoulder, kissed it, and sat up. “Listen, sweetheart, I gotta…”

“Go, you poor fucker.” You smiled at him warmly. Tempted though you were, the situation would not end as well were you to actually give your virginity to this stupid, beautiful, idiotic, wonderful contest. “I’m fine, I swear. I’m gonna have a drink and pass out.”

He chose that moment to glance over at the table where the bottle of Vat 69 had been left earlier. A slow smirk spread over his lips. “Glass of whiskey, maybe?”

“Yeah.” You yawned and stretched. “A wise man once told me wine is for pussies.”


	4. Chapter 4

You awoke when the run rose out of pure habit, but resisted its call to action. There was no need for it here. You drifted in and out of slumber, mostly hovering in between, for hours longer. It was the time for sleeping in, damn it, your first opportunity for doing so in weeks, and the exhaustion kept you clinging to the sheets for just a little longer each time you woke. Eventually, though, the fullness of your bladder and emptiness of your stomach won out. After a shower, you were ready to head out.

It was gorgeous outside, and the sun had risen high in the sky. As you walked towards the town, you could feel how it heated your hair. The sensation took you back years to walking along the beach, hand in hand with your mother, the tides kissing your feet. You passed under a canopy of leaves created by a lane that someone had planted Japanese maple trees alongside. Soon, the leaves would turn red, and the sun would illuminate them to a brilliant illusion of flame.

Warmth and fire…Just like Toye. Made you smile.

You knew the habits of your mates. Most would have gone to sleep long after you, piss stinking drunk, and aside from its regular inhabitants, the town was quiet, with few folks coming in and out of shops on the main square.

Your favourite place opened every day at eleven, and the smell of butter, bread, and sizzling cheese on a griddle made your mouth water.

It was definitely the sort of place where one seated oneself. A waitress would come along when she had a chance. For now, you were satisfied to pick up one of the faded menus and muse about which juice to choose to have with the meal. It was an actual choice, for this short period of time.

“Uh, hello?” There was a definite inquisitive value, not declarative. It was a voice so soft and so seldom heard by you that you almost did not recognise it, and certainly not outside camp.

You turned around and smiled. “Roe, hey. I don’t think I’ve ever caught sight of you out and about.”

“We normally run in different crowds. Or, I normally run alone.” He gave a little smile, too, delayed, as though he was unsure at first of how to behave. Immediately, you got that feeling, that he knew. He put the back of his fist against his mouth and coughed. “I…may I sit?”

Oh, what a polite southern gentleman. Did he know? You reached across the booth to indicate where he should sit.

“Yeah, of course. Are you hungry, Eugene? Oh, can I call you Eugene?”

His smile became more natural as he sat down. “I suppose you can, it is my name. I’m sorry, was that rude?”

“No, it was jocular. Take a menu, let’s figure out something to eat. I’m starving, and for once we don’t have to eat tasteless misery slop.” Your eyes were already scanning over the menu. They claimed to have passionfruit juice…interesting.

“Oh, I ate a little while ago, I was just going to leave, but I’m hoping you won’t mind if I keep you company? Could I stay for a cup of coffee?” Eugene put his elbows down and leaned slightly into them.

“Of course you can! Damn, Eugene, don’t ever let me stop you from enjoying a decent cup of coffee. I’m not so terrible to talk to, I promise. And…” You trailed off, cleared your throat. Did he know or didn’t he? “In spite of what you may hear…”

He tilted his head slightly, lips forming a momentary pout. “I don’t know what you mean, ma'am.”

“I am not a ma'am!” With a laugh, you turned back to the menu. Shit, how to cover that up? “May or may not have drank a little too much last night and made an ass of myself. Maybe.”

“Well, I would be a real hypocrite if I could fault you for doing something I may have done a time or two myself.”

Now you had the mental image of Joe Toye going down on Eugene Roe, and it was making your head spin as though you really had gotten blackout drunk with Bill and Malarkey. No, no thoughts of exciting homoeroticism, not before you had even ordered a sandwich.

For the life of you, though, you could not figure out what the draw was for Eugene to want to sit down and have coffee while you ate. He was not the type to normally seek out company, and there had been such little interaction between you before. You had your stomping grounds, your regular buddies, and while you were not opposed by any means to coffee, sandwiches, and conversation.

Eugene fell suddenly quiet after a while, making your mind swing back like a pendulum to the assumption he may know. Damn it.

“When I was growing up, my granddaddy used to take me fishing.” He cleared his throat and sat up again, and the mystery man grew even more…mysterious. “Down in Louisiana. We would leave as early as four in the morning sometimes, usually be back around seven, with a pail full of catfish, if we were lucky. Butch, the fellow that owns this establishment, he often goes fishing for catfish, too, early in the mornings before opening the place up with his wife. Just like my granddaddy, too, he fries the fish up black and serves them with grits. Taste of home, you know?”

“Yeah,” you nodded a few times, processing what he had said. It felt out of place, but somehow reassured you that he was in the dark as to your…salacious bedroom competitions. If he knew and was bothered, he never would have told such a personal story about himself. “Was it good?”

Eugene had the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Not the same, but it made me think of more pleasant times than there’s been recently. I’m sorry to say I have to run, now, I hate to leave a lady before she’s ready to leave the table.”

More abrupt and uncharacteristic behaviour—well, maybe uncharacteristic, who honestly knew? A Cajun boy full of strange, delightful surprises.

“The lady doesn’t mind at all. I’m almost done with this, I would’ve needed to head out, too. Have a good one, Gene. I’ll see you some other time.” You finished your glass of passionfruit juice and winked at him before he slipped through the door.

“Well, you’re chipper.” Nixon slipped right into the place Eugene Roe had just occupied.

You blinked at him several times. “Excuse me, are you stalking me?”

“I absolutely am not, madam, I’m just an ambassador. Don’t hit!” Nixon leaned back against his seat to avoid your swatting. “I saw you come in here when I was at the liquor store.”

“Because it was noon-ish?”

“Because it was noon-ish, exactly, and I was running low.” He poured the contents of his flask into a cup of tea he had brought with him from…wherever.

“How are you smuggling so many bottles of liquor back, anyway?”

“Up my ass, one at a time.” Nixon groaned as soon as he said it. “I’m hungover, I’m not at my best, leave me alone.”

You picked up the remnants of your sandwich to finish it off. “I have actually been asking you’re to leave me alone all week, Nix.”

“Shut uuuup. Anyway, how did it go?”

You watched him stir a disgusting amount of sugar into his whiskey tea, and made a face. Terrible. “Joe Toye eats pussy like a god.”

“Ma'am, this is a family restaurant,” said the waitress. She had approached the table sometime while you gaped in horror at the beverage Nixon was sipping.

“I’m so so—”

“Ma'am, this is our tea time,” Nixon said, looking up at the lady with wide eyes. “Would you be so kind as to bring my friend a cup? She’s a little under the weather, I apologise for her atypically filthy mouth.”

You were speechless as you watched the woman walk away, but this time you were successful in giving him a smack. “You’re just being shitty at this point, Mr. Ambassador.”

Damn it, she came back sooner than expected. The waitress gave you a dirty look as she put your tea down in front of you, and Nixon was giggling to himself.

“It’s too easy,” he said, splashing a little whiskey into your cup. “Drink up, come on. You had a good night, I had an awful night.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” you said, taking a tentative drink. It wasn’t the worst, it wasn’t bad as the stuff was without the tea, at least. “And you’re not going to tell me who’s coming tonight?”

“You’re coming tonight.”

Well, that was probably something you should have expected. You took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I will not,” Nixon said. “Not unless you’re just desperately uncomfortable with the idea, but I don’t think you are. I think you’re just curious. You’re going to find out. If you go into it not knowing a head of time, you can’t overthink it ahead of time. You like some of your competitors more than you do others. This allows for a little more objectivity. You trust me, don’t you? That I would never do anything that would allow you to come to the slightest bit of harm?”

He sounded…oddly sincere, more so than could have been expected.

“Well, I do trust that, but I also think that this is amusing to you. You’re right, I’m only curious. Is it you?”

He shook his head. “No, not this time. You can tap out any time, you know.”

Now he sounded a little pissy. You attributed it to the hangover and let it go. You’d already hit him and talked down to him, and illicit activities or not, he was still an officer.

“No, don’t get up,” he said when you pushed your plate aside. “Don’t go yet. It’s not traditional.”

“You’re in a bad mood.” You reached for a pack of cigarettes rather than the money you were originally getting to pay the bill. He produced a lighter before you could. “It was a good night. And it wasn’t just the, you know, the activity that will make that waitress lose her mind if she heard it again. Toye is a…he’s a hell of a guy. We ate, we danced, we had a few drinks. Maybe he set the bar too high for everyone else.”

Nixon’s eyebrows lifted. “In the sheets?”

“No. Well, maybe, but I really mean how he…truly went out of his way to be kind about it all. I didn’t feel weird, and I also didn’t feel like he was putting me on for anything more. There was no pressure. Not that I would have expected that from him. Or from any of you all, anyway. That was just what I was…scared of. Nervous about. What have you.” You took another drag.

For once, Lewis Nixon was quiet, still. After a few moments, he cleared his throat loudly and put some cash down on the table, more than enough to pay for your lunch, let alone the tea. He lifted a hand and held it up before you could protest as he stood. “If one of them ever makes you feel any of the things you were afraid or nervous to feel, I want you to shoot the son of a bitch. Myself included.”

“I’m not fucked up about any of it,” you said. “Really, Lieutenant Nixon, I would have shot you all dead by now. Jitters. That’s all done with.”

“My name is Lewis,” he said. “I’m the ambassador of your—”

“Don’t!”

Finally, he smiled. “Lewis the True Pussy God. Not lieutenant.”

###

He wasn’t going to fucking show. It was a wash. You had gotten back to your room, taken a nap, still heard nothing. Ate dinner, nothing. Cracked open that bottle of Vat-69, nothing. Regretted pouring a glass of Vat-69, nothing.

Your gut had been convinced of Joe Liebgott since the night before, ever since Toye had given him that look. It could not possibly be, though, because of the way Lieb had looked at you. That smirky face of his was full of intent, and whenever he came up to bat, he was not going to—

What was it with these people and just showing up?

The door opened, because of course you had forgotten to lock it after coming back from dinner, like an idiot just desperate to be murdered.

“Well, look who finally decided to show the fuck up,” you said, your voice carrying all the irritation that that bit of whiskey amplified just a touch.

Liebgott was smirking again and closed the door.

“Really? What is it, almost midnight? Didn’t Nixon give you some sort of directions not to be a waste of my time? Okay, granted I haven’t been awake as long as I normally am, but I shouldn’t have to wait around to get my pussy eaten. Not when it’s, you know, pre-arranged by my pussy ambassador.” You watched him as he crossed the room looking just as he had at the bar the night before. “Did you do it on purpose to build a sense of anticipation? Because I’m more annoyed than anything—”

He grabbed you by the elbows and hauled you to stand upright in front of him without a word. He held a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture, and when you nodded, finally realising that was what he was waiting for, both his arms wrapped around you.

It was nothing at all like the way Toye had held you. This Joe had only to lean down closer, but his lips never touched yours. He was just looking at you as the long seconds passed, so close, but choosing never to give you what you wanted. He could see how your throat trembled when you swallowed. He could see the way your pupils dilated. The only thing you could see was a cool exterior and that curve along his lips. His arms tightened around you, but higher up than your waist. Just around the bottom of your ribcage. Just a suggestion, just a hint.

The comparisons would not stop flowing into your mind. Liebgott was not trying to keep you calm, nor was he trying to seduce you. He knew, somehow, that he would not need to anymore. All traces of annoyance at his tardiness was gone, even though you felt certain now it was intentional.

Liebgott’s delay was every bit as deliberate as the way his gaze pierced yours. In a minute or less, he had literally strolled into your hotel room and shown you precisely who held the reins.

It seemed as if he finally might kiss you, but that was not to be, either. Liebgott turned you around suddenly and began marching you towards the bed.

Your heart beat faster as you moved. His grip was tight, unflinching, and when you tested that by slightly twisting your arm against it, he gave you a rough little shove.

When your knees hit the edge of the bed, his body pressed right up against yours. He pushed your head forward to expose the nape of your neck; his knee pressed against the back of your thigh, pushing your leg up onto the bed. The activity was so quickly-paced, you hardly had the space to breathe in between every motion. His lips touched one of the top notches of your spine, sending chills to spread all throughout your body, and then you felt it. Another smirk.

Liebgott’s hands were placed around your ribcage again, squeezing slightly, then backing off, over and over in an enticing rhythm. He held you that way for a while longer with his lips hovering over your neck. You kept waiting, actually holding your breath, sure that he would say something.

Instead, he only moved his hands roughly upward over your upper body until they squeezed around your breasts. After a long moment, both hands slipped down the front of your dress so that now he was touching bare skin, and right as you gasped, he shoved you down onto the bed. One of your knees was pushed further up than the other so that the other thigh pressed at an angle against the edge of the mattress. He sank slowly down to his knees behind you.

The fabric of your panties ripped slightly when he yanked them down. Liebgott pushed your thighs further apart to make room for himself and then you could feel—

Oh…

The first sound you had heard him make all evening, other than those quiet laughs, was a soft moan when his tongue first dipped inside you.

That was when you felt your body shake. He did not have to tell you or push you into spreading your legs further. Joseph Liebgott was eating you out from behind, an act you had never even thought of in your wildest fantasies as a plausibility. You gasped again, then moaned; what the hell were you holding back for, anyway? This was what he wanted, and whatever Joe Liebgott wanted, you wanted to give it to him.

He gave a sharp, pleasurable tap to your ass, then grabbed it rough in his palm. His tongue flicked upward along your labia, up to your clit, then back again. He was making the most obscene noises without the slightest fucking care in the world, and that’s when you realised he was loving this, too. Every bit as much as you were.

You fought the urge to speak, to beg, because somehow that felt forbidden. He wouldn’t want you to go that far. His ego did not need your begging, it was complete without it.

What he needed was your obeisance, your obedience. Your body was screaming his name, but he wanted no words to pass through your lips. He pressed his face against your pussy and his tongue plunged deeper than before. He was growing more aggressive, squeezing harder at your ass, kneading the flesh. Liebgott was moaning, but you were louder, hips now moving as wildly as his fixed grip would allow. It was all centred around what he allowed for you to do.

You clawed at the sheets as you came, but he did not let you go just yet. Officially, you were not allowed to take multiple orgasms into consideration in your judgement of a winner, and Liebgott would have known that. His insistence and continuation, the way his tongue still swirled and dipped and fucked, was not for you.

It was for him.

You were weakened and boneless by the time he stood. You lay out against the bed on your belly, unable to even lift your head after all that he had done to you. Liebgott slapped you on the ass, squeezed it one last time, and left.

Not even once had a word passed between you, but you did not realise that until you were shakily pouring yourself another stiff glass of Vat 69. You took a sip and tried to hold yourself together.

”Holy fuck.”


	5. George Luz

“Well?” Lewis Nixon’s hair was ruffled, his gin blossoms still thriving from the previous night’s bingeing. He looked like shit, and still managed to have a sort of polished air around him. Predictably, he upended the contents of his beloved flask into a cup of Earl Grey. “First round of The Great Pussy-Eating Contest of Toccoa is now over. Who the fuck won?”

“I’m not telling you,” you mumbled with scrambled eggs in your mouth. In the military, you learned fuck table manners. “You think you’re so slick, trying to get a leg up on the competition and find out everything they did.”

His eyebrows leapt. “Madam, I take exception. I’m merely being a good ambassador. And a little curious. A lot curious. You don’t have to say who did what, I just want to know who was better.”

You nibbled the corner of a piece of buttered toast thoughtfully. “They’re both winners in their own way.”

Lewis scoffed and drank his rancid whiskey-tea. “God, I hate you. You’re the absolute worst.”

“Love you too, you sloppy drunk.” You ate the rest of that toast just as thoughtfully. “They were different. They had wholly separate approaches to the art and purpose of cunnilingus. I think I have a thing for spanking now.”

Another lifted brow. “Which one spanked you? Jesus, this got a lot more colourful than I anticipated. Come on, I’ll tell you what I did last night.”

“Has that ever worked?” you asked. “Has anyone ever wanted to know which slimy gutter you mucked about in, a hooker’s tongue in your ear and a bottle pursed between your lips?”

“My ex-wife did,” he said. “If you keep talking down to me, I’m going to get hard in this fine eatery. Not that I mind that, I’m just forewarning you of the consequences of dirty talk.”

You laughed. “It’s not dirty talk, it’s degradation.”

“You know damn well those are the same thing.” He was smiling himself, though, and overall seemed much more satisfied with tea time than he had so far during the weekend. He reached up and fixed his hair, and, failing that, you leaned across the table to help him. “This is fun. I like this. Tell me how useless I am, I’m really close.”

“This is why people can’t love you.” You placed his garrison cap carefully atop his head to try and hide what else was in disarray that your fingers could not comb away.

“It’s definitely why she couldn’t, but I think you’re wrong, I think Dick loves me,” Nixon said. He took a sip of tea with his pinky stuck far out for your amusement and looked like he would catch a cramp in his hand. “Do you really think I’m running this show just so I can trick my way into winning? Don’t you think my level of confidence in coordinating such an event, knowing that I will also compete, belies a certain level of skill? Just because you don’t want to admit to yourself I can make you see heaven and hell doesn’t mean that I can’t.”

You were still laughing at his outstretched pinky. “I don’t know about that, do I? That’s why it’s a contest, that’s why you are, in your own words, competing. How can I ever be confident about your skill level, myself, if I gave you all the insider information? How would I know that you hadn’t been taking sly mental notes as I dished to you every time someone else made me see at least as far as the stratosphere? See, you’re just silly.”

Nixon cackled and clapped his hands. “Oh, boy. You’re really getting ahold of this whole banter thing. I love it.”

“Neither of them was stupid enough to reveal anything to you, were they?” you asked.

He shook his head. “No, it’s part of the code of pussy-eating honour. One cannot compel a fellow competitor to betray his own secrets. It’s unbecoming, anyway.”

You scoffed. “But the ambassador can try fooling me into telling him their secrets?”

“Fuck yes, I can try,” he said, then cracked a grin. “I get such a thrill every time you call me the ambassador. I bet it feels almost as good as eating you out.”

“Are you going to find that out anytime soon?” You lit yourself a cigarette after pushing your empty plate away from yourself. It never bothered him when you wolfed down breakfast like you had never once entered civilisation before, so you never bothered to hide it.

He swayed in his seat. “Are you trying to fool the ambassador into revealing his secrets? Madam, you’re undermining the seriousness of this tea time, I daresay this competition itself. Your wiles will not work on me, I hold an esteemed office. I took a sacred oath.”

Conveniently overlooking the false outrage, you passed your lighter when he held his hand out for him. “So, which of these dingdongs is going to participate in round two? I seriously do not understand why you feel I shouldn’t be privy to the scheduled activities for my vagina.”

“It’s like the Olympics, only I care about the outcome,” Nixon said. “And I will not even hint as to the matter, madam. Rest assured I’ve got you and the best interests of your pussy in mind, and, as you are aware, a vested interest in how all this turns out. Do you want to see what’s at the matinee before we have to head back?”

“Are you serious?” You tilted your head. “Lewis, you look like you need a nap. In the hospital.”

He cleared his throat and leaned across the table. “I told you to quit trying to make me hard.”

“Sweet fancy Moses.” You rolled your eyes and stood. “Okay, that’s all the Nixon I can handle. I need to get my shit together before we head out.”

He rolled his eyes right back. “You want me so bad.”

You scoffed, tapped his shoulder on your way past. Endearing drunken bastard.

###

Truthfully, you weren’t even sure yourself which of that weekend’s competitors could be chosen over the other. When you were back in boots and barracks, the reality of what had taken place hit you as just that, a reality, and you could only laugh. Ten men squabbling over who ate pussy best, all with you coming out of your goddamn mind. As long as they could keep it to themselves, there was not a single way you were not the true winner.

The town and its soft mattresses and hot showers and orgasms all became a distant memory soon enough, though. Nothing about Toccoa was sleepy, or welcoming. The food was as appetising as shattered glass, and about as colourless, too. You could not even look at either Joe the same as you had over the weekend, either. As they suffered alongside you, they were exactly as they had been before.

That in itself was a bigger relief and better outcome than you had ever hoped for, and they did not seem to regard you any differently, either. You half-expected for Toye to hang around, well, more than he usually would, but other than one or two out of place winks from Liebgott, the slim bastard, hardly anything was different at all.

Of course, the thing most unchanged had no idea that any of this was taking place, and screamed at you regularly. You tried your best to never think of him outside of what you absolutely had to, but as you returned from your barracks, having changed into your PT gear at Sobel’s command, you could just feel those enormous cow-like eyes on you. Aside from just being horrifying, that was also…wrong. He was supposed to be at the foot of the hill, waiting for Easy to gather, not…hanging around the ladies’ barracks, looking for you.

Lately, it had been getting worse, he was getting more brazen. You heard him before you saw him, because that was how he wanted it. He left no room for questions of what he was doing, why he was doing it.

“Is there a reason your shoelaces are dragging on the grass, private?”

Even though you knew he was about, you still jumped and moved into a position of attention. You knew your laces were securely tied, but didn’t dare even look at them. “No excuse, sir.”

His shadow moved of you first, and then Sobel was blocking the sunlight from hitting you personally. He had changed into his PT gear, too, which made things feel even more off, even more…uncomfortable, for reasons you couldn’t quite pinpoint. All you knew was the way that your stomach clenched, and how the hairs raised on the back of your neck, like an animal in imminent danger. There had never, not since you first met him, been any doubt that the man was a predator. Not just an abusive megalomaniac. Herbert Sobel was a greater threat than was even apparent.

“Well? Why aren’t you correcting the issue regarding your state of dress?” he snapped, mere inches from your face. He nudged your knee with his to spur you on, and that was a line he had been toeing for over a month. He was looking for excuses to touch you, hungry for them now. “Properly fasten your footwear, private. Your failure to prepare to even make it up Currahee sets a disappointing precedent, private.”

“Yes, sir.” You bent at the knees rather than the waist and untied your shoelaces before tying them again. Sobel circled around you, watching your every move, and he seemed to move closer and closer with each rotation. When you stood at attention again, you were nearly on top of the man. You had no choice other than to continue standing there until dismissal. Your heart beat faster as you felt his knee press against you again. It almost felt as if you couldn’t manage a single breath anymore.

“Lieutenant Sobel!” Joe Liebgott in running shorts and a white shirt was a much more attractive sight than Herbert Sobel in his. He jerked his thumb back the way he came. “Sir, Private Gordon hasn’t shown up yet, but the rest are in formation.”

“Gordon?” Sobel’s cow eyes almost seemed to redden, and his hatred of poor Smokey signalled a temporary respite, at least, for you. He strode away, spittle from his acrimonious hollering preceding him.

“Smokey’s missing?” You tried to dust yourself off, mentally, but Joe was still frowning after your superior as he made his way over to you. “Lieb, is he missing?”

“No, you and Sobel were missing so I came after you. Smokey’s waiting with the rest of them. What the hell did I just see?” He looked at you again, then nodded his head towards the way Sobel had went. “What was that?”

Your cheeks grew so hot, immediately. “Not that! Gross, I would never!”

“Yeah, I know you wouldn’t, but that’s what he’s up to, huh?” Brows furrowed, hands on his hips, Joe made his way closer to you. “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on or just leave me to fill the details in myself? What’s he been doing to you? How come you haven’t said something to me before? What did he do? How long has this been going on? He looked like he was about to…”

“I don’t know what he was about to do, I really don’t want to think about it,” you interjected forcefully.

“Come here.” Joe put his hand on your hip and pulled you along between a narrow row of tents. He leaned closer. “Are you okay, hot stuff?”

“God, yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry about it.” Whether you were trying to convince him or convince yourself really remained a question up in the air, and you didn’t want to consider the answer. You cleared your throat and stood straighter. “He’s just creepy. He’s just Sobel. You know what he’s like.”

Joe shook his head, eyebrow lifting. “No, I didn’t know anything about all of that. He get you alone like that often?”

“No,” you said quietly. “He’s just a creep. That’s all. It may seem worse than it is because I’m a woman. He rides Smokey worse, and you fed the poor bastard to him.”

“I had to do something! I couldn’t think of anything else, and there’s few people he hates as much as Smokey. Gimme a break, here!” Joe held your arm and leaned so that he was eye level to you. “I have to take care of you. You come before Smokey.”

You noticed then how different his posture was. You had not been all that close to him since Saturday night, so you had missed any protective posturing before now. He was making sure to stand over you, though, despite the fact no one else was around or could see you.

“I want you to talk to Sink,” he said suddenly, his tone implying there could be no argument.

You shook your head regardless. “No way. Forget about that right now. I’m not getting thrown out of Easy or possibly the Airborne just because he doesn’t act so appropriate all the time.”

At first he looked angry, but the expression on Joe’s face shifted curiously. It did not immediately hit you that he was searching for words, because Joe Liebgott didn’t always have much to say, but what he did, he was already sure. “You think I’m not allowed to give a fuck about you now? If you don’t start watching your tone with me…”

Your thighs tensed with eager anticipation. The way he spoke, the words he used, the proximity of his body to yours, his energy, it all reminded you so much of how he…

Joe put his hand on your cheek, looked at you for what at least felt like a long time. He was searching for the right thing to say again, and you held your breath just to be certain you wouldn’t miss anything. In his eyes, you could see the frustration that he felt with himself, and maybe self-doubt. Finally, rather than utter another word, he grew more rigid in how he held you close to himself and kissed you. Just that, only a kiss, but a lot more than, well, then you had expected he would ever do. Every second of it had been thrilling, but Joe had been rough, gruff, and abrupt. Here he yielded, where before he had given no impression he was even capable.

When he pulled away, Joe gave you a wink and a slap on the ass. “You better tell me if something else happens. Don’t fucking argue with me. Don’t look at me that way, either.”

Well, that was more or less the sort of thing you had expected to come from him. You smiled at his back as he ran off towards the foothills, wondering to yourself how the hell you would make it up and down Currahee this wet.

###

Just as the week before, ten men alone ensured there was no company-wide revocation of passes. After watching them throughout the entire week, you had a pretty good idea of who was going to be hitting the sheets with you, come the weekend. They all watched you as carefully as you watched them, and none of you approached each other with a single word about the contest. The normalcy and your comfort of it remaining had really begun to set in. Bill knew damn well what you had been up to over the weekend and knew damn well he would be up to the same thing, but that did not stop him for a moment from bitching at you until you’d play a quick hand of cards with him. Lipton flitted around looking like a nervous teddy bear, pretty much biting his lip permanently, and he was the only one that came close to mentioning the competition to you, but you understood those intentions well. Nothing untoward or, for lack of better word, unsportsmanlike would ever come from Carwood Lipton.

The two that stood out, however, the two that really stole the show, whenever it came to making fools of themselves and being bigger disasters than they were ordinarily, were Luz and Malarkey. By Thursday you were certain, and while Nixon would not confirm or deny, he did look vaguely annoyed at them in a telling way.

The most obvious difference in Luz was that he just stopped talking whenever you came around. It wasn’t in a horrible way, as if he had been talking about you, and he gave no nasty looks for encroaching upon his conversation. Rather, whenever you came into the barracks or sat at the same table, his loud mouth shut completely, and he would just stare at you, looking for all the world like someone had frozen him in space and time. Usually all it took was some elbowing from Hoobler to get him back at whatever inane story he’d been in the middle of, and the only difference after that, for a while anyway, was how frequently Luz would look at you and clear his throat.

Malarkey stole the cake when it came to tragic performance, however. It was quite the usual for him to be flirty, in a shy sort of way unique to the Don Malarkeys of the world, but now he was just making a spectacle (if not specimen) of himself. He grinned like an idiot every time you were within a few feet of him, whether or not you were interacting with one another. When you were, the poor man apparently lost the ability to modulate his own voice. He kept getting louder and louder with constant changes in pitch, and then he would speak more softly again, in the most awkward (yet adorable still) possible manner.

###

Nixon’s cup banged down on the table at the place where the waitress now hated you. “Those goddamn–what did you call them last weekend? Dingdongs?”

You nodded and flicked ashes into an empty coffee cup. “Yeah, dingdongs.”

“Those goddamn dingdongs,” he said with equal force and emphasis. “I go through all this trouble trying to inveigle what we’re up to and they give themselves away like fish jumping up into the boat. They did all the work for you. They know nothing of subtlety, the philistines.”

“They’re nervous. They’re dingdongs, but they’re nervous baby dingdongs and can’t be faulted for that.” You crossed your legs and continued to watch him fume. It was just too satisfying, seeing Lewis Nixon feeling an emotion so genuinely and wearing it on his sleeve.

“Don’t you start going soft on me now,” he said. “What if it’s cheap trickery? You’re making it all too easy for them. They’re playing your sympathies like a Stradivarius. Look at you. Soft. Lacking in refinement!”

“Now I can’t tell if you’re really being pissy or not,” you said, then narrowed your eyes. “How is Lieutenant Winters doing with all of this, anyway? Have you talked to him since he got up and left when you told him about it and humiliated me in one fell swoop?”

It took only the one mention of Winters to turn Nixon’s mood completely around, and he began to laugh, harder and harder. This went on for a while, a testament to just how much he really did care about Winters; he actually found someone other than himself funny.

Nixon was having to fight for each word he said, and was turning pink. “His little ears…so red. ‘Lewis, I don’t understand’. 'Lewis, I hope you know what you’re doing’. And then…his fucking freckles…glowed…he realised…he had said…Fuck!”

You only understood up to a point. The real amusement was the joy of seeing him so happy, so unabashedly gleeful, without sarcasm, no cynicism. It was lovely.

“Hey, uh…”

Nixon’s eyes widened comically and he put his hand on his chest. How long Luz had been standing near your table, god only knew.

“Jesus, Luz!” Nixon choked down some boozy tea. “What’s wrong with you? It isn’t time for you to appear, and yet here you are, giving yourself away, looking like the spectre of someone who died fucking themselves with their own shame.”

“Don’t give the guy a hard time,” you scolded.

“I, uh…” Luz cleared his throat. “I know it’s not the best time, but I just needed to talk to you…before…”

When Nixon opened his mouth to further berate him, you held up a hand. “Don’t stress yourself out so much, Mr Ambassador. You’re out of tea, anyway, and mine’s gone cold. There’s more tea to be had tomorrow.”

You had never indicated that these sanctified tea times, so precious to him, were anything more than an irritant. Nixon lifted his eyebrows with tentative hope. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You smiled at him and gave him a nod. “I’ll call you if I need you. Or if I get bored.”

“You will?” Lewis rose from the chair and threw some folded bills on the table to settle the bill without looking. He was too busy trying to make sure you weren’t bullshitting him. “I’ll be there if you do.”

That was about as far as the man could be depended on, as far as goodbyes went, and now, free to do so, you turned your attention back onto the tense figure of George Luz. “You do look like you want to crawl into a storm ditch and bury yourself even deeper. What’s the matter, Luz?”

He cleared his throat, fist against his lips, and sat down in the chair formerly occupied by Lewis. “Okay, here’s the thing.”

“Wait.” You held up your hand again. “Before you can say it, let me get this out of the way. Spare me the whole spiel about me not having to do this if I don’t want to. If that’s what’s bothering you, don’t let it. I’m fine, George. Really. Looking forward to what you can do.”

“I am going to die before this night is through,” he said, bracing himself against the edge of the table. He cleared his throat again. “Now I feel like a selfish asshole, because I wasn’t worried about that, actually. Well, I didn’t feel any need to be anxious for you, because of course none of this would be happening if you didn’t want it to. If you changed your mind, believe me, I would know about it. I’m not trying to decide how you feel for you. No, see, the problem isn’t that I think you’re, I dunno, going along with it all at the expense of your own comfort. I’m just shit fucking terrified I’m literally going to pass out when I see you naked.”

There was no guesswork about whether or not he meant it; George Luz and Lewis Nixon were just different animals.

You had to think fast, had to make him crack a smile somehow.

“So, wait,” you said, folding your arms. “Who told you that you’ll get to see me naked?”

That gave him the perfect opportunity, and you could almost see it fit into place. There was a little bit of a Luz twinkle in his eyes again. “Well, I figured if I cried enough…”

You stood from the table–it always felt as though the welcome wore out for you at this place pretty quickly now, anyway–and reached for his hand. “Come on. Let’s see what they’re playing at the cinema.”

###

A night out doing something as simple and familiar to him as catching a movie with a friend was all Luz seemed to need in order to catch his stride. He got a little talkative until you hit him on the back of the head to shut him up, and he even pulled the whole yawn-and-stretch to put his arm around your shoulder. Maybe it was a joke, part of the way that he could keep himself cool under pressure, but either way it was charming, captivating, winning. Placed back in his natural habitat, George thrived.

When you left the theatre, he wanted to go over every single scene from the film, point by point. That occupied you through most of the lengthy walk back to the hotel up the hill. You gained a new perspective on so much you had seen, and so much that you hadn’t. In the past, you had just thought that George Luz liked going to the movies, but to him, it wasn’t just going to a dark room and watching a love story on a screen.

No, George Luz had a multitude of intelligent and astute observations that had you trying so hard to recall all these little details that seemed to have recorded themselves into his brain. He spoke of film as a language he knew as well as he did English (and, as it turned out, Portuguese).

The hat that the main protagonist wore, it was a metaphor for the sort of man he felt he was supposed to be, the way Luz explained it. He seemed to remember every occasion the man had taken it off or put it on again, and had so many different ideas as to this motif and what it signified.

“When he threw the damn thing into the bay at the end, that was his way of throwing away all the shit his old man and ex-wife had piled onto him,” George said, tossing his spent cigarette into the dewy grass as you walked. “What did you think of it, anyway? You’ve kept your opinions to yourself.”

“I have positively nothing to add to the conversation!” you laughed and bumped your shoulder into his. “You just told me more than I could have gotten out of that movie if I had seen it fifteen times.”

He smiled at that, the words taking root in his chest. “Aw, come on.”

“No, really.” You put your arm around him. “You should write about movies when the war is over. You have so much to say about it all. The red dress, the broken mirror…the way Marianna wiped her lipstick off before she kissed him…I just never would have thought of any of that.”

“A basic rule of thumb is to never take anything you see in a movie at face value unless it’s about a cat or a clown.” George nodded confidently. “You can put those words on my headstone. I will believe them until I meet my maker.”

“Well, it was all very exciting and impressive, anyway,” you said. “Frankly a lot more so than the movie itself.”

“That is the highest compliment you can give to a connoisseur of films.” He tucked his arm around your waist and went quiet for a while before he cleared his throat again. “Hey, uh…just so you know…I’m sorry if I love you by the end of all this.”

You knew, on a basic level, to interpret that as a joke, as just more of Luz talking out of his ass, but it did make your heart bounce around inside your ribcage. You gave the slightest bit of a chuckle and pulled his arm when the hotel finally came into view. The two of you stepped outside the great canopy of leaves that stretched above the manicured lanes of trees, but never once did you hear his footsteps falter.

He was ready.

“Can I pour you a drink?” you asked once you were inside. You stepped out of your shoes and invited him to do the same, to get comfortable in a room you knew was bigger, brighter, and softer than the ones he was used to.

“No…” he said, his voice sounding far away, but he had been unable to take his eyes off of you since you turned on the light. He cleared his throat. “No, thanks, I’m a lightweight, and I will never admit to that again, so long as I live.”

You poured one for yourself, unable to stop yourself from smiling at the easiness of it all. “I’ll never tell a soul. Scout’s honour.”

George gave you a funny look, a different sort of smile than usual. “Yeah? I trust you. You’re putting a hell of a lot of trust in my hands, the least I can do is believe you wouldn’t tell anyone I passed up a shot of shitty whiskey. That is eye-watering, even all the way from over here. How are you drinking that?”

The fresh bottle of Vat 69 had just appeared, already in the room when you first walked in. George walked over to inspect it, and then you.

“You know, I think that I should probably really evaluate the fact that I am willing to drink this simply because it happens to be there.

"You, uh…” That gorgeous smile of his, without flaw and without effort, went up a few watts. George’s eyes remained locked on yours even when his hands began to skim over your shoulders. “You look really pretty tonight. I don’t think I told you that yet, and I think you should punch me in the mouth for it. Not really, please don’t, but the sentiment is absolutely sincere and intact.”

You chuckled and smiled right back. “I would never lay an unkind hand on you, Luz.”

“That’s more comforting to hear than you may realise, because it truly is a crime I’ve been so wrapped up in my own anxious paranoia not to tell a woman how nice she really looks. I hope you believe me. That I mean that.”

“I do,” you said softly, and bit your lip. “Are you okay, Luz?”

“Don’t go worrying about me,” he said with a little wink, but his voice was just a touch thinner than you had heard it before. He saw your eyes narrow the slightest bit as you tried to tease that puzzle out, and he winked at you. “I want you to not laugh at what I’m about to say to you. It’s pretty important, actually, hence me prefacing it rather than just spitting it out.”

“Well, it’s good that you say that, then, because sometimes it’s hard to tell when you’re being serious.”

“Oh, I am, so serious. You know me. Serious.” He cleared his throat a few times. “God I’ve got to fucking stop. Okay, so there’s this…I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this one poem ever since I found out you hadn’t married either of the Joes last weekend.”

Full of surprises, that Luz of yours. The way his mind worked was always a curious ball of mysteries layered in sarcasm and funny voices, but that was not what you were hearing now. You nodded at him again. “I find it so refreshing that someone other than Web wants to talk poetry with me.”

“Okay, that’s not the person I want to envision as I say this.” George cleared his throat again and his hands squeezed gently at your shoulders. He looked you in the eyes again for several long moments as he made sure that the words were right, or that he could say them after all, you were unsure. George leaned down so that his forehead barely touched yours, and you felt a sheepish ripple of his lips over yours. “Whatever happens with us…”

His hands drifted upward from your shoulders until they framed your face, and you could feel the slightest tilt of his face against your own. Another almost kiss, another ember glowing bright in your chest. His thumb stroked along your jaw, and his voice dropped both in pitch and volume. “…your body will haunt mine.”

You drew a breath, staggered and shaking. You never would have laughed at that, but his little exordium had brought all of your focus onto those words in such a way that your belly burned in silent anticipation, growing hungrier in each syllable. You would never have guessed George Luz much of a poet, nor a fan of it at all, but it was not one you had ever heard before.

George smiled at you for a moment, just standing there with your body so near to his own, your face held carefully between his own two hands. Sensing no rejection, no amusement at his expense, he pressed his chest against yours. “Thank you.”

You did not answer, only parted your lips slightly; he was wanting something simple like this, not to have to answer for the poetry, but knowing that you had heard, received it, accepted it and accepted him, too. When George kissed you then, there was a distinctive feeling in your body of being pushed against him by a rushing tide of water that was not there, as though you stood along the shoreline of a beach. He felt you leaning against him that way and the kiss deepened, and how hard it was, not to be swept away in George Luz.

Neither one of you wanted to come up for breath. You stood in the middle of the room still, now with only your clothes separating your bodies. His arms wrapped around you and you felt smaller in them than you had in Toye’s, a sensation that had you moaning against his mouth. As if by some magic or intuitive understanding, the arm across your back tightened its hold, and you were there, and so was George Luz, and that was all there had ever been.

“Come here with me,” he whispered in a rough rasp that felt as if it caught against your skin. He gave you a second to adjust to the words before guiding you gently to walk with him to the plush bed. He wasted no time in kissing you again, though, but this time you could simply let the metaphor of the sea carry you away on its long, crushing tides.

It was welcome, offered you a new way to be vividly, ecstatically lost. What a lovely way to drown.

His fingertips grazing against the strap of your dress on your shoulder, leaving little chills, pulled you up above the water once again. You both lay on your sides, one of your knees slotted between his. He pulled a pillow down to put against your back, then pushed the strap off of your shoulder and kissed thee bare, stimulated skin there. You shivered and gasped with sheer pleasure, feeling his lips affectionately smooth their way to your neck, then back again.

George was busy dusting more kisses against your shoulder, neck, and collarbone when you reached back trying to snatch at your zipper. He lifted his head when he noticed, and he pulled your hand up to kiss it. He squezed your fingers in his palm and looked in your eyes again, studied your gaze.

“Do you want me to do it?” he asked. “I honestly may never be the same man again. This is…better than a poem, that’s for fucking sure.”

Yet again his words possessed that quality of sincerity that you just had never heard wavering in his voice before. You had never once taken George Luz for a liar, but also had never imagined seeing this part of him, nor that it even existed. You nodded and let out a deep breath as the zipper began to slide down.

You swallowed, shifted this way and that as the blue fabric pulled away from your body. The other two had not tried to get you to disrobe completely, but neither had you. You wanted to be bare before him. You wanted the approval of his gaze and the wonder, the adoration, that came as each inch was unveiled to him. You were even more eager to strip off your underwear, too, and took his hands to place over your breasts–

Except George seemed to have a better idea than you, here. He kissed your throat, then down your chest, his breath teasing along the path of his lips. He nuzzled in between them and you noticed how the back of his hand trailed down, hairs raising along this path, too. George’s lips closed around your nipple and he sucked gently. A tremor passed through your body only just before he touched between your legs.

Your breathing cut off harshly, a gasp that heaved in your chest. George cupped his hand and kept playing with your chest, lips moving back and forth while his fingers teased and explored. With Toye, you had felt the urgent need to push him on, goad him into doing what you wanted; Liebgott had simply come in and taken, shown you what wonders could be. Here with George, though the pleasure mounted great and deep, there was still a contentment, a longing to let it last.

He kissed the space where your breastbone ended and slowly, slowly down to your bellybutton. You whined softly when he had to move his hand out of the way, but his fingers slid slick over your thigh and made your head swim. You hadn’t realised just how wet you were, but now you could feel it slippery against your skin.

“Do you remember any of the rest of the poem?” you breathed.

“Oh, fuck, I’ll try,” he murmured against your hipbone. “Uh…Your traveled, generous thighs between which my whole face has come and come the innocence and wisdom of the place my tongue has found there—the live, insatiate dance of your nipples in my mouth—your touch on me, firm, protective, searching me out…”

Another whine, your thighs pushing further apart. “I can’t fuck you, but I want you to come, too.”

“I am…definitely not going to try and change your mind, but I have to ask if you’re sure about that. I’d hate to have my dick out and you feel like you’re obliged. I promise you, I’m having a hell of a time.”

You reached down and touched his shoulder. “Oh, we can’t have you jacking off behind a tree on the way back to town like a deviant. You’re a deviant, but not that kind.”

George chuckled a few times. “Like I said, I am not here to change your mind.”

You heard his zipper this time, but he wanted to distract you, and it worked–you could hear how his clothes rustled right when his tongue traced the most delicate arc over your clit.

A sound left you, one you could not quite identify even if it could possibly matter enough for you to do so at the moment. The movement of his arm carried through the mattress and made you blush, though it was at your own insistence he was doing it–perhaps because of it. You could feel yourself grow wetter against his wild and yearning tongue just for that fact; George Luz was touching himself because you told him to, because of the pleasure it gave him to make you feel good.

You whispered his name, the soft sound of it hovering like a prayer above the bed. Once you started, it was hard to stop repeating it. You were soon keening, but still with the murmured reverence of his given name stammering naked through your lips, over and again.

Instead of pulling his hair, at first you stroked it. You felt the thickness of it and touched him as gently, just as careful and cautious, as he had been treating you. Quickly, though, you were grasping at the dark strands, and you could hear him moan, feel how he worked himself faster than before. Your hips arched up against his mouth, and you just wanted…just needed…

“Please,” you whispered, feeling as if your whole body was straining.

George nudged your thigh further apart with his shoulder, making you into a sort of feast. There were no words pretty enough to describe the silver slide of his tongue against your clit, the sinful tilting of his head, back and forth, side to side…

Simultaneously, your hips lifted off the mattress, your thighs closed around George’s head, and you shouted. Curses, praises, words…only words.

“This might be a bad time,” George panted. “I swear to god, I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to, I fucking promise, but please…can I come on you?”

“Anywhere from the neck down,” you quickly acquiesced. The man deserved a trophy, and you had already demanded he jack off, he was already going to come, it didn’t particularly matter to you where.

George chose your belly. Maybe it was less of a choice than a matter of circumstance and necessity, because no sooner than he had moved did you feel it warm on your skin. It was a first, but you just smiled at George and tugged him down to kiss him more. You had not thought about being able to taste yourself on his mouth, and it didn’t bother you, either. You had never kissed a man after he’d gone down on you, but it wasn’t a bother. It was…good.

“Jesus, you ruined me,” he gasped as soon as he was able. As soon as he was breathing steadily again, he was talking. You lay there together with him for a long time, his cum cooling on your skin. He talked, held your hand, made you laugh. Recognising your exhaustion, he picked you up from the bed a while later and took you with him to the shower. George Luz tucked you into bed after with a kiss to your forehead, and hesitated at the door when he left.

You were asleep within minutes.


End file.
